[CYOA] Evangelion: Adventure

[Legendary]

Your name is Shinji Ikari. You can't choose you own name; that's an indignity everyone but suffer.

But we never did establish a backstory for you. Now's your chance to affect things a bit. Your dad's had you live somewhere else since your mom died, we know that, but who looked after you?

Pick a Japanese city/town (which is purely for fluff)
And some guardians.

You're welcome, of course, to use family members (ala the manga) or have lived with a teacher (ala the TV show), or maybe something else. Please though, to celebrate the return of the CYOA, let's keep things... realistic.

[esselfortium]

I'll go with Shinji having been raised by his teacher, out in the country or wherever it was. His teacher was frequently busy and absent/aloof, which led to Shinji spending a lot of time by himself. During this long period of solitude, his emotional and abandonment issues were allowed to fester. On a more positive note, during this time he also developed his internationally-known cooking and housework skills.

[Sailor Star Dust]

+1 what Essel said.

To expand: Shinji's teacher was an actual teacher who had some high-ranking position at his work (say, as department head or dean or some such thing?) which made him frequently busy with paperwork or conferences.

Shinji lived in Ube, Yamaguchi (Anno's town :3 ) with his teacher.

And some random tidbits because they were never properly used in most continuities: Shinji's SDAT was originally Gendo's while his cello was originally Yui's.

[Eric Blair]

Shinji Gendo and Yui used to live in Hakone until the day where Yui decided it was better to be a purple bio-mecha than a dotting mother; Gendo turned into a taciturn, broken father who had neither the time, nor the skill set to care for his son, what with the whole running a multi-million paramilitary organization.

Deciding it was best for Shinji to live somewhere else, and because an old acquaintance of him needed both a tax break, and a live-in maid, Gendo sent Shinji down south, to the town of Shimoda, where he resided with an old school teacher who was rarely home, and Shinji ended up having to cook, clean and sew to be able to fend for himself.

Eventually, he decided he wanted a bicycle, found one under a tree and took it home, the police found out, thought he had stolen it and decided to pull him out for questioning; it was only through a fortuitous call from someone named "Super Dandy Fuyutsuki" that Shinji was out of the tank, and with a bag and a back pack and a one way ticket to Hakone.

[supershinjiasukashipper]

Thats a good one Blair.

[Legendary]

I see. After your mother died, your father sent you to a friend of his who needed a tax break and a live-in maid. The two of you now live in what's left of Ube.

This friend of your father's is never around, so you've learned how to take care of yourself. Your COOKING and CLEANING are impeccable. As it's not hard to clean up for yourself, you've also taken the time to foster your greatest interest: MUSIC.

Let's take a look around your apartment, shall we? It's a pretty small one, all things concerned. The front door opens onto the living room, which has a small television, two uncomfortable sofas, and a couple of bookshelves. The living room shunts into several different rooms, such as the bathroom (which contains what you'd expect for a one-bathroom house), and the kitchen, which doubles as dining room in this small area. Your teacher is here, having just come back from his job. He brought the mail with him.

The other two doors of this tiny place open into the bedrooms. Yours contains all your personal belongings and a couple pieces of furniture. His you've never been in.

There's still a few more things we need to cover in this tutorial before we can get anywhere. Why don't you look around?

[Seele00TextOnly]

...

[Cody MacArthur Fett]

Go check the mail. Someone might have a use for you.

Indeed, and if it's just another piece of paper from your father with black boxes, random kanji, and exclamation points written all over it then it'll make a great addition to your modern art college.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Go into sensei's room! I'm curious to see what it looks like! He shouldn't get mad for you going into his room as long as you don't touch anything, right? >_>

That silly mail can wait.

(Also: Are you rebooting yet again or...? )

[Kendrix]

He lived in a big, old-fashined house with a prestigeous teacher who earned his money by teaching kids of the wealthy, and hardly ever left that house, since the teacher gave him lessons at home.
There were a few trips to nearby playgrounds or shops, but after a few initial bad experiences in the former, he could never really bring himself to approach any other kids, so he never had any friends or family.
He used to go for walks after dark, so he'd avoid meeting anyone.
His teacher was kind to him and tried to harness his musical talents, but Shinji didn't believe he had any talent and couldn't be convinced into giving concerts or participating in an orchestra.
Shinji never wanted to be a bother to the Teacher and felt a bit uneasy about the fact that he was paid to look after him. He thought that he was such an awful person that no one would spend their time with him before getting cash for it.
Despite the teacher's efforts, they didn't really connect.
The first 7 years after his mother's death, he had loose contact with his father, but Gendo hardly exchanged more than a few sentences - then, there was that incident where he ran away at his mother's grave, and since then, all contact broke of.
No one in his old town remembers Shinji - Some might have head Cello Music comming out of the old teacher's residence, but hardly anyone thought much about it.

[Legendary]

Backstory stuff

Normally because you entered this after I'd responded to votes, I'd completely disregard it. There are a few things in here I'm going to keep, but next time try to be a bit prompter!

Go into sensei's room! I'm curious to see what it looks like! He shouldn't get mad for you going into his room as long as you don't touch anything, right?

You look at your sensei's door, tempted. But then your combined behavioral stats; SELF-ESTEEM, SANITY, and your unique behavioral stat, MANGRIT all kick in. Your middling SELF-ESTEEM points out that your teacher barely cares about you and would react poorly. Your high SANITY reminds you that such behavior would be rude. Your ridiculously low MANGRIT won't help you here either, and this isn't really the situation to be a badass.

You don't encounter these three stats much in your daily life, but if you step egregiously away from your usual polite behavior (ie, attempting to swear at individuals; violating personal property without a good excuse), they lock you down.

Besides, your teacher would not be impressed by your behavior. Your Criminality stat is already at THIEF for the bicycle incident last week, even though you were innocent and everything.

Go check the mail. Someone might have a use for you.

If someone wanted you that badly, they'd probably just call you, but in any case you go to collect all the mail addressed for yourself.

The first envelope is a solicitation for a credit card. You've saved up one hundred MONEYs as is, and your town life makes you doubt you'll need more of a nest egg than that (you don't live in the cities, where things are expensive, after all), so you dump it in the trash.

The second envelope invites you to a beach resort. You throw this one out immediately too. Your ANTI-DROWNING stat is abysmal, and you're not really athletic. On a similar note, your coordination is almost non-existent.

The final thing addressed to you is merely a postcard. It has a woman in revealing clothing on it. The message is "To Shinji-kun: I'll be picking you up, so wait for me, okay?" An arrow labeled, "Check this out!" points to her cleavage.

This is an enigma; you have no idea why this woman is writing to you. The card, however, reminds you of something else you recently received, but you're not sure where you put it... Your room, maybe? Or the shelves of the living room? Somewhere, that's for certain...

[supershinjiasukashipper]

Next move, Shinji' goes to his room and faps to the picture.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Go to your room, check your desk and see if the postcard/photo has the same return information of any recent mail.

[Cody MacArthur Fett]

The room is the most likely spot for the previous correspondence. Check for it there, and then hopefully you will be able to decipher the meaning of the woman's message. She most likely was talking about a different, less loathsome, Shinji and mistakenly sent the letter to your house, but it never hurts to be sure.

[Legendary]

Next move, Shinji goes to his room

You head to your room, because it's as good a place as any to search for your things.

and faps to the picture

She is hot. You reach for your pants, but your SANITY smacks you. You have more important things to do! You think this postcard is important!

She most likely was talking about a different, less loathsome, Shinji and mistakenly sent the letter to your house, but it never hurts to be sure.

That's the spirit!

check your desk and see if the postcard/photo has the same return information of any recent mail

The postcard has no return information. Stupid efficient and free postal system, enacted in 2012 to ensure that all mail sent anywhere within the bounds of the Japanese nation would arrive at its stated destination, guaranteed.

However, with a lucky (or at least guaranteed) roll of your SEARCH stat, you do see something you forgot to throw away last night, a different letter from your father. Nearly everything has been redacted, except the instruction to "Come." A train ticket was included. You tore everything except the train ticket up, though.

---- ----- ---- ----- ----

END Tutorial Part One: Basic stat information; basic instruction giving.

Current stats:

SPOILER: Show

COOKING: Licensed Fugu Chef
CLEANING: Sparkling Shine
ATHLETICS: Can't do a Chin-Up
COORDINATION: Tangle-limbed
ANTI-DROWNING: Abyssmal
MUSIC: Concert Qualifier
GARDENING: Friend of Weeds
HANDINESS: Broken-Wrenched
CHARISMA: Shy Guy
COMPUTER: Walking BSoD
SEARCH: Watsonian

GRADES: You're Passing
CLASS STANDING: Loner
RANKING: -
CRIMINALITY: Thief

SELF-ESTEEM: You're okay... you think
SANITY: You need not even question it
MANGRIT: Damsel in Distress

MONEY: @100
LUCK: One pair

---- ----- ---- ----- ----

The next day, you go to Tokyo-3, and after some minor mishaps, meet the woman on the postcard, Misato Katsuragi.

Currently, your relationship value with her is 0. You don't get to know the specifics of each relationship value normally; however, it should be assumed that when you meet someone the value is zero unless their behavior is unusually friendly or antagonistic.

To raise relationship values, you have to be a nice person. This is slightly affected by your CHARISMA, but only as the relationship approaches the extremes. Since she's a captain for Nerv, you might want to consider being just such a person. Of course, you don't have to be. After all, she is taking you to see father, and that might not be such a good thing...

[Eric Blair]

Try being an attentive good boy who stutters a lot and doesn't asks questions except to disprove of unlawful events like, say, stealing electric batteries form an abandoned hardware store to make someone's car come to life, or driving past the speeding limit, perhaps that will change your status from being a "thief" to simply becoming a "patsy".

Failing that, enjoy the drive and ask something intelligent, like "there sure is a lot of debris here, what happened?" and "what is that huge purple thing with a horn that has just come from inside the earth?".

When you reach your father's office, you should be expecting him to give you a warm welcome, maybe an embrace and a few kind words in a manly way; that should make your stats climb and make you willing to do whatever anyone says because you want/demand them to love you and never leave you.

[Cody MacArthur Fett]

Well, it's time now to exhaust all possible dialog options ala a BioWare RPG. There probably won't be many options available at the moment, but it's like that cool guy on the television (what was his name, Adam Steiner?) always said "Information is ammunition," and right now you need bullets to use against your father . . . metaphorically speaking of course.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Ask Katsuragi-san about herself and where you're supposed to be going. If she has any questions for you, you might as well answer.

Good to be polite with her, after all.

If/when you see Gendo: KEEP YOUR CALM. Maybe the bastard will respect you if you don't [s:2tynlkmn]start whining[/s:2tynlkmn] yelling at him.

[Legendary]

Well, it's time now to exhaust all possible dialog options ala a BioWare RPG.

You may talk of anything, so long as Shinji has reason to know of it, or reason to ask. Self-esteem and sanity produce some other minor limitations as well. (IE, You can't ask about her father's death, you can't just start screaming "fuck you!', things like that).

Ask Katsuragi-san about herself

"Oh, there's not much to tell. I joined Nerv a bit after college, did some stuff in a couple different countries, and now I work here at Nerv Headquarters."

and where you're supposed to be going.

"I'm taking you directly to Headquarters. Your father wants to meet with you."

"What is that huge purple thing with a horn that has just come from inside the earth?"

Sh- shut up! There's never been such a thing here and you're confident there never will be.

"There sure is a lot of debris here, what happened?"

You don't see any debris! The city streets are immacul-- OH GOD. Something huge floats into view, like a giant black worm with a mushroom cap head. Misato immediately swerves down a side street. You hear planes in the distance, and bombs.

"Shit," Misato mutters. "We'd better hurry and get you to headquarters."

You still have some time to talk... If the Angel hasn't scared you, that is.


Because your stats aren't entirely relevant right now, I won't repost them. Expect them as a major feature once the ball gets rolling, however.

[Sailor Star Dust]

Shinji asks (assuming he didn't get the okay to call her "Misato" yet):

"Katsuragi-san, what is that? What's going on?"

Afterwords, he starts to mildly panic as Misato drives like a crazy woman towards HQ, I suppose.